As a rule, by the age of three years, enuresis occurs in only 25% of children. Already by 6 years old urination in small children passes.
Night enuresis is the inability to prevent urination during a night’s sleep due to a psychogenically caused violation of the urine retention reflex.
About enuresis, as a pathological condition in children, they say, starting from 4 years old, when normally a strong habit of retaining urine should be formed. The prevalence of enuresis in preschool age is 10%. By the beginning of school, this figure decreases to 4.5%, and by the end of adolescence, this disorder is rarely observed. However, 1% of eighteen have bed wetting.
Enuresis, like insomnia, is not an independent disease, but a symptom of various diseases. Violating sleep, enuresis leads to daytime sleepiness, irritability, guilt and shame, and the formation of an inferiority complex. Urinary incontinence can be caused by urological diseases, such as urinary tract infection, constipation, diabetes, allergies, hyperthyroidism. If the examination reveals the disease that caused enuresis, the treatment will lead to full recovery. In most cases, enuresis is not associated with somatic (bodily) diseases. Sometimes children just sleep very hard, and the brain does not respond to signals from a filled bladder.
Specialists-psychotherapists consider nocturnal enuresis as a systemic neurosis. Psycho-traumatic situations, certain traits of a child’s character, such as anxiety, lethargy, and also heredity play a significant role in its origin.
Night enuresis increases with aggravation of the traumatic situation, after physical punishment of the child, when he becomes aware that this is bad. The child begins to experience its lack. Developed low self-esteem and anxious expectation of a new embarrassment. All of this disrupts sleep, causing insomnia and poor health.
In cases of nocturnal enuresis, it is necessary to make a complete urine test and for seeding, in order to detect the presence of microbes in order to rule out infection. If urinary incontinence is associated with any inflammatory disease, then it must be treated, and enuresis will pass by itself. If the cause of enuresis is not a somatic disease, then psychotherapists apply methods of special influence on the child’s behavior.
Parents are not recommended to punish or shame their children. It is necessary to use positive emotions, for example, to reward him with his favorite delicacies or toys, in the event that the child remained “dry” all night. Encouraging good behavior is always more effective than punishing wrongdoing.
Many children are helped by special exercises that teach them to manage their bladder :
– It should hold the urine in the bladder for a while, despite the urge to urinate.
– Then you have to try to arbitrarily stop and resume urination.
Such exercises help children to become aware and control their sensations when the bladder is full.
Salty food before bedtime, for example, a piece of herring or pickled cucumber is recommended by doctors in the complex treatment of enuresis. Salty foods should be combined with the refusal to take any liquid after 18 hours. In some cases, doctors are prescribed medicines, for example, imipramine , which is taken according to the scheme, taking into account the child’s age.
Autogenic training helps to eliminate the state of anxious waiting for unregulated urination. You can apply the formula: “At 11 o’clock in the evening I wake up and go to urinate, then I go to bed and sleep soundly. My bed will remain dry. ” At the same time, young children are given watches made by themselves or by toys, on which the figure I is drawn. The formula, lighter for children, is also used: “The bladder is warm. I sleep calm, deep sleep. ” Treatment can be combined with hypnotic suggestion or suggestion during sleep.
All these methods of treatment do not give a very quick result and require patience, consistency, support from parents and loved ones. Treatment from beginning to end should take place in an atmosphere of understanding and encouragement. It is not necessary to reproach, humiliate the child and punish, as this will only worsen the situation. Children urinate into bed at night not intentionally, but because their health is not well.